X-MEN #103: The Goth

The X-Men get spooky with their latest kooky clan of foes

Originally Published August 2000

We begin with a little tooth extraction.

Psylocke is working out in the Danger Room, specifically exercising her new telekinesis, which she is using to augment her hand-to-hand fighting skills. She's chosen a simulacrum of Sabretooth as her sparring partner out of personal enmity -- you may recall Sabes has tried to kill her once or twice. She wants to be ready in case he comes knocking a third time, but the jokes on her because he's already absolutely 100% dead dead dead.

The new teke-KO powers (see what I did there?) are formidable indeed, but Nightcrawler is unimpressed. He'd be a lot more wowed if Betsy could do something that required fine motor skills, like picking a dime up off the ground over there.

Also watching from the control booth are Rogue and... Tessa? The waitress from the Hellfire Club??

That's right. In case you missed last issue, Tessa went free agent, reverting to a "previous association" -- meaning in this case, Charles Xavier, who had previously embedded her as a spy in the Hellfire Club in the first place as it turns out. Never mind that she's never had any friendly interactions with the X-Men, ever. Or that Charles isn't on this planet to vouch for her. Or that absolutely nothing material came of her longtime undercover stint with Sebastian Shaw. She simply decided it was time to leave and join the X-Men. Apparently, sometime between issues, she just walked in and started acting like she belonged there. I think that move was in Sheryl Sandberg's book.

We as readers clearly wouldn't want any reason to get attached or interested in this character -- it's far simpler just to be told we should! We, after all, are the lowly audience, and Chris Claremont is the writer -- he outranks us!

Anyway, Rogue goes for a walk down the hallway outside the Danger Room and gets grabbed.

Meanwhile, down at Harry's Hideaway, Piotr Rasputin befriends some of the colorful local racists who had been really excited to see some of Senator Kelly's inflammatory rhetoric on the news and are weirdly upset to see the channel switched to a baseball game.

Rogue awakens in what she surmises is a simulation of a destroyed city -- although with the way the NYT is going lately news readers would be the last to know if a city actually were in ruins. She's been stripped of her powers and left to fend for herself against a mystery foe.

The beam breaks, but Rogue makes evasive maneuvers, avoiding doing what she suspects her foe will expect from her, thus escaping capture by her opponent...

... Wolverine??!

I never look at covers so this is a surprise to me

Without her flight or super-strength at her disposal, Rogue uses guts and guile to lead her pursuer on a chase through the post-apocalyptic playground.

Back in Salem, Colossus is mingling when he runs afoul of yet another group of freaky-deaky baddies.

In the Department Store of the Damned, Wolverine gives Chase, only to run into some Home Alone-esque ingenuity on the part of his target -- she overwhelms his senses with a bag of cayenne pepper...

...then menaces him with some mannequins on remote control cars.

Ultimately, she manages to snag him in a trap.

Final score: Rogue 1, Wolvie zip.

She learned it from her mama.

But wait! Logan gets a buzzer-beater, escaping the trap and grabbing a spear for himself. They stand off, but Rogue declares herself the moral victor due to being able to absorb Wolverine's healing powers if they both struck at once and this was a real fight with powers.

This was, of course, all a big test: Rogue passed with flying colors, assessing the situation, combatting her adversary and coping with a disadvantage. All of this means Rogue is now... drumroll please... the leader of the X-Men!

Okay, but there won't always be Cayenne pepper there to save your ass

In the situation room, Rogue rebuffs her teammates. She's just a little ole Mississippi River Rat! Why not... literally anybody else?

Well, we all know Nightcrawler and Psylocke are bums as leaders. Wolverine will do literally anything to avoid taking on a management role. Warren -- does he even go here? And Thunderbird, get serious. There's also Storm and Cable, but they're not appearing in this book. 

While Psylocke, Warren and Neal -- aka "The Fun Ones" -- head to Harry's to meet Piotr, Rogue is debriefed on the Kitty situation: specifically, we don't know where she is and have no way to find her. They look into having Forge design a device that can track her, and also consider finding Jean to use her phenomenal psychic Phoenix powers to do the job.

Meanwhile, there's also the fact that Cecilia is still trapped in a building with the Neo(??!) and maybe they ought to start thinking about trying to help her.

Back at Harry's, we are introduced to Sanguine, Beldame, and Wanderer, known collectively as the Goth. And here I used up all my good material on the Lost Souls.

The X-Men are outmatched. The Goth -- of course -- have some kind of mind control powers, using the bikers to do the fighting for them, which sucks for Thunderbird because he's got that Alex Summers thing of "I can't use my powers, I might hurt somebody."

Sanguine uses his powers to turn Archangel goth -- black eye makeup, Cure CDs, the whole nine yards, I presume. Meanwhile, Betsy tries her luck against "Bedlam" (sp) and comes up short.

It's Beldame, doesn't anyone read Romantic poetry anymore?

This constitutes a win for the Goths, who return to their "lord" with everyone in tow -- meaning every living person inside Harry's Hideaway, as Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Rogue find when they arrive.

Time to call in the cavalry!

Ko-Fi

The Claremometer:

3 Gothic weirdos

1 Mind-controller

1 Reference to having a pilot's license (Psylocke)

1 Psychic katana, the "tangible manifestation of (Psylocke's) mental powers"

Further Thoughts:

A tale of two issues. Longtime readers will of course notice the similarity to Uncanny X-Men #201, the famous duel between Storm and Cyclops for leadership of the X-Men, an issue that may have rubbed me the wrong way but is justly regarded as a classic. Newer readers may not catch the reference, but still enjoy the context of this issue -- this group of X-Men needs a leader, and Rogue proves herself wit ingenuity, ability and instinct. It's a great shine for Rogue, and a huge level up for her character that may historically be lost based on the fact that nobody ever thinks about these issues anymore.

I liked it for that, I thought that segment of the issue was well-done. As to the other part: the last thing we need in our X-Men comics is more weirdos traipsing in from nowhere to pick a fight with the X-Men. Are the Goth yet another faction of Neo or are they up to something else? I don't know. I also don't care. They, the Lost Souls, Ransom Sole's crew, and everyone else are all interchangeable and coming down the pike so fast one after the other to diminishing returns. I've seen so much of this that it's hard to give any of it the gravity it so desperately wants.

Since his return, Chris Claremont has demonstrated a clear ability to churn out Chris Claremont X-Men comics. There's a lot of good in what he is doing and how he is doing it. But there's a missing element -- call it context, clarity, purpose -- that would clearly prevent people from resonating with it. It's almost there but not quite, and surely not the Revolution that was promised.